A couple of years ago, you could manipulate Google into ranking your site on the first page. This is no longer the case. If you break the rules that Google has established, you will get severely punished and you will see your traffic drop drastically. When you rank on page 1, you are guaranteed of lion’s share of clicks and therefore more conversions. It is therefore in your best interests to observe some best practices that will continue to keep you on page one of Google all year round. Here are some awesome SEO best practices to observe for top ranking as recommended by digital boss marketing.
Define your keyword list
Whatever niche you are in, there are arguably thousands of keyword phrases that you could rank for. It is not reasonable to try to rank for all of these keywords. Instead of trying to rank for hundreds of keywords, it is a better SEO practice to list a group of closely related keywords and rank for them. Developing a content marketing strategy around only a number of keywords makes it easier for your website to rank higher.
Produce quality content
Gone are the days when you could crowd your website with poorly written content, stuff them with keywords and receive lots of organic traffic in the process. The old adage of content is king has never been truer than now. The newest Google algorithms do not just consider the keywords but other factors like user interaction and shareability of the content. It is therefore a smart SEO practice to take time to produce nothing but the highest quality content.
Video content
Video is the next big thing and Google knows it. For this reason, content that has video is usually ranked higher. A good content marketing strategy should therefore put video marketing into serious consideration. You can use simple explainer videos to help your visitors figure out how your product works or some whiteboard animations to describe processes. A good SEO practice is uploading the videos on a YouTube channel then embedding them on your websites.
Social Media
The role of social media can no longer be ignored. Social media content is already gaining more SERPs and that is why most digital marketing is now based on social media channels like Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. Most internet users spend a bigger chunk of their time on social media. It is therefore a smart move to include social media in your SEO plan.
Local SEO
Local SEO is increasingly growing in popularity. More than 50% of search engine traffic is usually local searches. It is therefore in your best interest in invested in some local SEO. Google’s new algorithms favour websites that have done some local SEO. That would explain why if you searched for a business in your locality, those that have more user reviews usually rank higher than those that do not.
In summary, every forward thinking business should take content marketing more seriously. Whether the content is video, infographics, articles or images, quality is key. That is the fastest and surest way of achieving high ranking in Google.
